Inequivalent exchange
by hidekey
Summary: Thanks to the Gate, Zolf J Kimblee is no longer the bloodlusting psychopath his comrades from the Ishbal war remember. He is now an idealist struggling helplessly against fate, and running from his past. AN: A continuation of BeautifulFiction's /s/6187002/1/The-Saffron-Soul.
1. Chapter 1

**Warning: there is M/M in the Saffron Soul, so I will be referring to an established homosexual relationship from time to time. If this bothers you, sorry.**

**AN:After I started, I decided on changing my fic to an AU based on BeautifulFiction's The Saffron Soul I quite liked the premise, and I think I'd like to expand on it.**

**Anyway, Saffron Soul sort of branches off ambiguously, but I`ll follow the anime anywhere the Saffron Soul content isn`t clear about its history. A note on timing: in the Anime, Ed was 15 during the events of Lior. In the Saffron Soul, Ed is 18. I will assume that he had his bout in England and Germany, but I'll be ignoring anything from Conquerors of Shamballa; he discovered a way back on his own and once the Army discovered he was back they claimed he needed to serve another 18 months. This story will take place 6 months after the end of the Saffron Soul.**

**Major story edit: I've condensed the chapters and worked on forcing the story in a single direction.**

* * *

Ed woke to the sound of the telephone, coming to awareness enough to hear Roy answer it but not enough to hear what was said. Through the bond, he felt the rush of the other man's emotions: Roy was shocked, then resigned. The bed shifted as Roy stood, chuckling at Ed`s feeble attempts to pull him back into bed.  
"Sorry Ed, you`ll have to eat breakfast by yourself." Ed whimpered pitifully. "Now, Ed. When you moved in, we agreed that this wouldn`t affect work." Roy deftly avoided the pillow thrown at him, while pulling on his uniform.  
"Fuckers can wait!" Ed grumbled resentfully. Roy flashed him one of his signature smirks,  
"The world doesn`t halt upon your orders, and the man I'm supposed to meet doesn't halt upon _anyone's_ orders." Ed buried his head in the remaining pillow, offering a disbelieving snort.

"I'll see you at work." Roy said as he left the bedroom, adding a stern "Try to be on time for once, Fullmetal." The remaining pillow hit the door as it closed. Ed realised he was left alone on the bed without a pillow, and loudly complained about the 'smug bastard who stole my pillows.'

* * *

As Roy and his silent-but-ever-present bodyguard, Hawkeye, approached the police station, Hughes filled them in on the situation.  
"Got a call from Headquarters," Hughes offered. "They said Kimblee was found in the graveyard, detonating his own tombstone. Five soldiers were incapacitated before a Central police officer passed by out of sheer coincidence. Kimblee turned himself in. The police don't know what to do with him, but he refuses to talk to military. The brass thought we could pull something out of him, being 'comrades' of his from Ishval."

Roy resisted the urge to facepalm,  
"Great," he sighed. "I suppose the reason they didn't just ship him back to prison, is that he behaved and didn't just kill the soldiers like he usually does. Explosive alchemy is useful enough that when Archer brought that man to heel, he was given a promotion." Now he knew why his best friend had asked for an alchemist to come with him: Hughes expected Roy to incapacitate the Mad Bomber if he had a tantrum. The property damage that would result from pitting the two of them against each other would cause even more paperwork than Fullmetal causes on an assignment. Cripes, he did not want to deal with this when he could- and should!- be cuddling with his sweetheart for another two hours!  
"If the Crimson Lotus Alchemist wanted to escape from a police cell, he would have wandered away from the pile of rubble by now. Why couldn't this wait until daylight?" His question was rhetorical, but Hughes answered anyway.  
"Anders practically begged for us to come in immediately," Hughes offered with a wry smile. "I guess locking up a live bomb puts everyone on edge, especially after he demonstrates his specialty inside the interrogation room."  
"Hughes?"  
"Yes, Roy?"  
"Next time you need an alchemist at four in the morning... for pity's sake, call Armstrong instead of me!"

The moment they opened the door, Anders rushed towards them. The rest of the building was quiet and empty.  
"Thank God you're here!" Beckoning them to follow her, she led them to Kimblee's cell. "After he started blowing small divots into the walls, in the shape of an alchemy circle, we evacuated the building." _Oh, great!_ Roy thought as he put on his gloves. _Throw us in an empty building with the Mad Bomber._ He began to list the forms he needed for compensating damage on city property. At least he already had copies of them all, with how often Fullmetal needs them.

When they rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of the prisoner, they all slowed. The man in the cell sat hunched on the bed, not in the feral anticipation of combat that had always seemed to follow Kimblee, but defeated and forlorn. Upon hearing their approach, he looked up.  
"Are those... tear marks on his face?" Hughes whispered unbelieving. Roy quickly shushed him, knowing firsthand how good Kimblee's hearing was. Kimblee rubbed at his face, more smearing the salty liquid than getting rid of it. His posture straightened, and he was once again the insane predator they knew from the war.

* * *

Zolf J Kimblee sauntered to the bars separating him from the others,  
"Oho," he said, mustering all the malice he could. "well if it isn't the Colonel, and our old buddies from Ishval," he sneered. "What a reunion!"  
"Actually," Roy corrected, "I'm a Brigadier General now."  
"How impressive," He mocked. "Who'd you kill for that promotion?" Mustang's face became a cold mask of resentment. Even going through the motions of his old personality left a sour feeling in Zolf's stomach.  
"Kimblee, lets get right to the point," Roy showed him the impassive mask he'd perfected since the war. "How did you get here?"  
"Well," said Zolf condescendingly, "This nice police officer led me here from the cemetary. I don't know the directions offhand, I didn't pay much attention."  
"This was after you destroyed your gravestone, and attacked five soldiers who were there to visit another grave." Hughes helpfully reminded him.  
"Well, it was my gravestone, after all," the Mad Bomber defended with a maniacal laugh. "I should be able to do what I please to it." He grinned away his sins as he used to, but the pain of guilt nearly made it a grimace. "And I didn't attack the soldiers," he defended, petulant. "They attacked me!"

"That isn't what I want to know," General Mustang interrupted irritably. His mask was slipping, Zolf noticed. It was nice to know he could still get under that man's skin. "I want to know how you got here from Lior, and where you've been since then. Several soldiers witnessed your body being tossed from a building right before the city dissolved into sand. You are supposed to be dead."  
"You've told me that before," Kimblee reminded Mustang. "At that time, you believed I'd been executed. Maybe next time I _'die,_' you should insist on personally identifying my corpse." Kimblee's demeanor suddenly changed, as memory overwhelmed him.

* * *

_He had lost the fight with Scar, and though he clung to life, he could barely move. Around him, he could feel the energy build for the city-wide array. If he didn't get out before its power was released, he would become a part of the philosopher's stone that he was employed to retrieve. He may want to_ possess_ it, but he didn't want to be_ part of it! _His desperate mind grasped onto an image from his childhood; the transmutation that killed his mother. Examining it from a trained alchemist's point of view, he knew that he could alter the tattoo on his hand to cover the basic elements that had opened the transdimensional Gate. Hopefully, since he didn't intend to bring the dead back to life, his own life wouldn't be forfeit. It was a long shot, but even if he died like she did, at least his soul wouldn't be used for another alchemist's gain. Soon enough, the black hands that haunted his nightmares slipped around his body and pulled him from impending doom. _

_Into something equally terrifying: The black faces he saw could have easily been drawn from a child's nightmare. They looked at him greedily, and when he looked back he recognised some of them. They were faces from portraits in his uncle's house, labeled with their achievements in alchemy and the date of their ceremony to become 'Honored Ones'. Uncle had showed them to him as a challenge: their place in society was above all others, he was told, and because of his fascination with catalysts and explosive energy he had the potential to join them. If this was indeed what they'd become, he was glad for his decision to take his sister and flee to Amestris._

_Inside the Gate, knowledge was forced into his mind in a painful parody of osmosis. The longer he was held here, he knew, the more it would cost him._  
_"Let me out!" He demanded of the inky faces. "I don't want this knowledge!" Suddenly, he stood in a terrible white void with nothing but the closed Gate and an entity he perceived but couldn't quite see._

_"You came to the Gate without a demand," the entity began, "we simply offered something equivalent for your sacrifice." _Sacrifice?_ Zolf wondered, _what have I sacrificed_? "You are still owed. Part of your brain is damaged, limiting your alchemy and intellect. It will be restored."_

_His surroundings changed back to sand and chaos. The philosopher's stone transmutation was finished, the unused energy dispersing in a cloud of sand and sparks. Zolf lay there, watching the dark hands take both his legs as sacrifice, and realized the full extent of the Gate's meddling. The brain damage it had repaired not only freed his alchemical potential, it also returned to him the negative feelings of sadness and remorse, whose absence was the only thing that allowed him to function in Ishval._

* * *

"Kimblee?" Roy's words didn't prompt a reaction. He began to reach through the bars to shake the man, when Hughes pulled it back.  
"It's a flashback, Roy. Don't touch him, it's better to just wait it out." Roy looked confused,  
"Who do you know who has flashbacks?" Hawkeye and Hughes offered him a significant look. "I do not have flashbacks." The significant looks intensified. "I sometimes get lost in thought, but that isn't a flashback."  
"Very well, sir." Hawkeye replied. "Since you do not have flashbacks, I shall assume that those thoughts you 'get lost in' hold a fierce grudge against the dustmotes in your office, and that the dustmotes only understand the Ishvalan language."

* * *

"Crimson!" Roy shouted, calling him by his alchemist title. Kimblee was disoriented, thus showing a side of himself they had never seen. But at least he was responsive again.

"No, no..." he moaned. "Crimson blood! God, I've killed so many..." Zolf began to shudder uncontrollably "So many people... so many children..." He covered his face and cried out in anguish. "I laughed! I mocked them! I bragged about it to my comrades! How can I live with this guilt?" He burst into sobs. "My legs... I could just let myself bleed out... but what right do I have to escape this by dying? I owe them all recompense." His eyes widened, staring at something that wasn't in the jail cell. "Soldiers coming! No! If I go back, He will just command me to kill again! When He finds out I'm useless, He won't even bother with prison... assign me to Lab 5..."

"Crimson Lotus!" Roy shouted again. Kimblee tore his eyes from the invisible terror, not quite focusing on him. "He's dead!" Roy informed him. The terrified man flinched.

"No." Kimblee said with terrified certainty. "He can't die. I tried once, and He laughed at me." Kimblee's visage melted into numb shock. "I can't hide from him, he's got this eye..." Roy realised his mistake. He'd assumed Kimblee meant Archer, his commanding officer. But to find out that Bradley had revealed himself to Kimblee wasn't much of a shock.

"I burned it until nothing was left," he offered cryptically. Neither Hawkeye nor Hughes was aware of what had happened in the Bradley mansion; if he ever got tried for treason because of it, he wouldn't drag them down with him. Kimblee snapped from his reverie, becoming fully aware from that single comment.

"Gone! Are you sure?" He asked suspiciously. "Those monsters can come back from almost nothing!"

"Sir?" Hawkeye asked suspiciously.

"It's nothing for you to be concerned about, Liutenant." Mustang dismissed it brusquely. Walking up to the bars of the jail cell, he spoke quietly enough for only Kimblee to hear. Kimblee, his face right on the other side of the bars, strained to listen.

"I held his remains while he burnt, then I threw the remains into the fire before I left. That was three years ago, he would have got his revenge by now if he were still alive. He's dead." Kimblee sighed in relief, his breath fluttering the cuff of the other man's glove. Roy felt the breeze on his wrist: In his rush to leave that morning, he hadn't wrapped his wrist to hide the array that betrayed his alchemical bond with Edward. It shouldn't have mattered, just a sliver was showing, but Kimblee's eye flicked toward it instantly.

His eyes widened in shock, grasping Roy's wrist and pulling him into the bars. The action bunched his sleeve into his armpits, and his glove around the base of his hand, completely exposing the array. His mind already registered it in the split-second it took for Roy's face to hit the bars of the cell door. Instantly, Maes and Hawkeye drew their weapons, but found no safe angle to shoot without risking Roy's safety. Roy himself held his other hand poised to snap, but a threatening surge of explosive alchemy warned him off. Kimblee's face was twisted in anger, hate, and fear. He spoke a word in Cretan, before switching to Amestrian.

"You're one of Them?!" Kimblee's voice trembled, "I won't go back without a fight!"

"One of Who? Back where?" Roy demanded, strained against the bars without any idea what had set Kimblee off. Just when Roy thought the man was sure to kill him, he relaxed.

"No, that's impossible. You'd be rejected, even with your unique skills. There's no way the Saffron Society would accept black hair and eyes... But-" He yanked hard on the arm he was holding, slamming Roy once again against the bars, and nearly dislocating the shoulder. "Alchemy marriage is a close-kept secret."


	2. Chapter 2

"You're late again, Fullmetal." Ed was greeted with when he arrived for work.  
"Yeah, yeah." Ed dismissed, "you always say that." Mustang raised his brow, settling his chin on his clasped hands in preparation for the inevitable argument.  
"I always say it because you're always late. Honestly, Fullmetal, if you continue to fall short on your duties-"  
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO TINY HE CAN'T EVEN REACH PAPERWORK FROM THE BOTTOM DRAWER?!" Mustang's all too familiar smirk was his only response. Silence fell, as Ed became aware of the worried emotions Mustang sent through the bond. He huffed, and flopped onto the couch, "By the way, I left a butter and jam stain on the kitchen ceiling for you to clean up. Does this," he gestured to the bond, "have anything to do with the panic I felt while eating my breakfast?"  
"As a matter of fact, it does." Mustang said, suppressing a shudder before he shared his conversation with Kimblee.

Ed jumped up, slamming his hands against Roy's desk so hard, he dented it with his automail.  
"Alchemy Marriage?!" He shouted. "There's no way I'm married to you, Colonel Bastard!" Roy smirked,  
"I'm not a Colonel anymore," he reminded his subordinate affectionately. "I think Danner's original array came from notes on Kimblee. Apparently, Crimson was given an alchemical treatment in Ishval that was related to Danner's later research. It's very likely that Danner found his first array in that file. Kimblee knows what the bond was originally supposed to do, but in exchange for information on it, he wants to meet my 'wife',"

Ed grabbed his coat, heading toward the door before stopping mid-step. He whirled around, rushing at the desk and scattering papers as he climbed it to grab fistfuls of Roy's uniform.  
"WHO IS SO SHORT HE WOULD BE MISTAKEN FOR A WOMAN, EVEN COMPARED TO A GIRLY BASTARD LIKE YOU?!"

It was late morning when the Flame and Fullmetal Alchemists approached the police station with transfer papers. Upon seeing the papers in his hand, Anders nearly fainted in releif.

"You owe me for this," Roy told Kimblee. He could have been speaking to a wall, though. Crimson and Fullmetal were staring at each other with a mixture of hostility and curiosity.  
"Crimson!" Mustang shouted, startling both of them before continuing on in a milder tone. "I managed to convince the upper brass that you were bedridden while being fitted for automail." Fullmetal perked his ears at the statement.  
"Automail?" He asked curiously. "Where?" Kimblee smirked, raising both pant cuffs enough for Ed to see the glint of metal. Roy felt like he was losing control of the conversation, thus he continued on firmly.  
"You'll be kept under watch for several months, for not informing HQ of your whereabouts, but will be able to resume active duty effective immediately." He handed the reinstated soldier a neatly tied package.

"Are you kidding me?" Kimblee asked incredulously, tossing the package on the ground without even looking at the uniform. "Even if the military is under new leadership, I won't serve those bastards ever again!"  
"Y'know, Colonel bastard, I'm beginning to like this guy!" Edward mused. Roy sighed in frustration.  
"If you don't accept your new post, Crimson Lotus Alchemist, Fullmetal and I have orders to forcibly detain you in the State prison. As I understand it, they've already turned the mattress and swept the floor of your old cell."  
Kimblee's eyes narrowed and his grin widened, "You think I'll go down without a fight?" He eagerly challenged.  
Edward matched his smile and clapped his hands together in anticipation.

"No," Roy said, stepping between the two volatile parties. "I am asking you to serve under my command so I can protect you from orders you won't agree with."  
"And that worked so well with Archer," Kimbley replied sarcastically. Roy bristled,  
"I. Am. Not. Archer." he replied stiffly, throwing the cell keys at his new, controversial subordinate.  
"Fullmetal!" He barked, turning his back and already setting a brisk pace back to his office. "Accompany him while he makes himself presentable. I will see you at 14:00, Crimson. I do not tolerate lateness." By then, his voice was beginning to fade with distance.  
"We'll see you after two thirty then, Colonel Bastard!" Ed called after him, offering up a one-fingered salute.

"I`m a Brigadier General, Fullmetal!" Came the disembodied reply.

Late afternoon in his office, and paperwork piling precariously upon his desk, Roy watched a very disgruntled Ed accompany Kimblee through the door. Roy leaned back in his chair, taking in the sight of the Crimson Lotus Alchemist.

"I thought I gave you a uniform, Crimson." He started, beginning to regret exposing the Fullmetal Alchemist's attitude to his reluctant new subordinate. Kimblee stood before him in a pure white suit, complete with white tie, vest, and hat. Before he had time to reply, Fullmetal interrupted.  
"Got dirty," he casually flopped down on the couch. "Plus, I don't see why he's gotta wear that crap if he doesn't wanna." Ed said with a feral, challenging smile. Roy hid his frustration behind a smirk, much to Ed's disappointment.  
"Are you doing this as part of your usual insubordination, or are you blaming me for the loss of your toast this morning?"  
"ARE YOU SAYING THAT I'M SO SHORT I COULDN'T REACH THE LOWEST CEILING IN THE HOUSE, EVEN WITH THE STEPLADDER?!" So it's petty revenge for his embarrassment. Roy placed his chin on folded hands, to prevent himself from banging his head on the desk.  
"Fullmetal, I am sure you are behind on several of your duties, I suggest you take this time to catch up."

"No way!" Ed protested. "You promised me this guy had answers! I'm not going to get any work done until I have those answers. And neither are you!" He justified his comments with a gesture of the unusually high (even for Roy) stacks of files strewn about not only his desk, but also the floor on either side. Ed jumped off the couch and began examining the walls behind the desk.  
"We can't discuss that here," Roy impatiently explained. "It isn't secure...

...Fullmetal, what are you looking for?"

"Fresh bullet holes. It looks like Lieutenant Hawkeye hasn't found out how far behind you are yet," Roy blanched at the realization of what he was in for, if he didn't cut his paperwork in half before his Lieutenant came back from target practice. Kimblee burst into laughter.  
"That little woman still has you on a tight leash, eh, Flame?" He walked up to Mustang's desk, grabbing several paperclips and picking up a radio by its cord. The telltale sparks of alchemy surrounded his fist, just before the lights went out. The eyes of the flame and fullmetal alchemists were suddenly glued to his.

"What was that?" Ed asked, fascinated by the unexpected display.  
"I've blown the fuses for this and adjacent rooms, by sending an electromagnetic pulse as far as I could from this point. Any electric listening devices are completely disabled, so unless you have spies hidden in the room, our conversation should be secure."  
"That isn`t possible for you," Roy challenged.  
"No, it is." Ed replied, "he amplified the flow of electricity, after wrapping the copper around the paperclips to create an electromagnet-"  
"That isn't what I mean," Roy interrupted. "The Crimson Alchemist is obsessed with explosions. He's never done something so subtle." Kimblee snorted in response.  
"Crimson Lotus Alchemist." He corrected. "And you consider that subtle?" He asked incredulously. "I must've given you a terrible impression of my skills... But then, you only arrived in Ishval after I'd gotten my 'treatment'. I'll have you know that I'm more than just a walking bomb." he said the word bomb with the disgust due to it. "My true area of study is catalysts in general, not limited to incendiary catalysts." He shrugged, "In war, explosives are far more useful than my other skills, so I got a reputation." The other two continued to stare.

He tapped his feet in impatience.

They stared.

"Look, did you want to know about the array on your wrist or not?"

"Please," Mustang motioned to the couch. "Have a seat." Ed rushed to claim his favorite spot before Zolf sat, 'accidentally' knocking papers off the desk in the process. Roy felt the mischievous glee through the bond, though, and offered a stern glare in response.


	3. Chapter 3

"From what I can tell from our earlier conversation, Flame, Danner was related to someone in the Saffron Society. He obviously didn't have the physical attributes or the alchemical talent to be invited in, but he must have been told about them - perhaps nothing more than bedtime stories."  
"What is the Saffron Society" Ed demanded. "What does it want from us?"  
"I doubt they even know of you, Fullmetal Alchemist, because if they did you'd have long ago been spirited away. You are everything they could hope to achieve from the breeding program that has been practiced for 300 years. From Flame? The best they could hope for from him is to take his knowledge as an 'Honored One'."

"What's with these incredibly lame titles, anyway? 'Alchemy Marriage,' 'Honored One...' Don't they have any imagination?"  
"The titles are just translations from the Cretan language. There's probably a better way to translate them but I am a native to Creta, and I haven't been able to learn any new Amestrian vocabulary for over ten years."  
"Why not?" Asked Ed, perplexed.  
"I was treated with experimental alchemy, and the inability to learn new things was one of its side-effects." Kimblee explained bitterly. Ed looked like he'd been slapped in the face. Kimblee had revealed in an earlier conversation with him that he'd once had brain damage that limited his potential, but to find out that this damage could make an Alchemist, who relied on his inquisitive nature, unable to learn not just alchemy but any new knowledge... He was terrified just imagining it. Kimblee's laughter shocked them both out of their horror.

"You should see the look on your faces! It's like you're about to be tortured!" His smile suddenly turned into a confused frown, as he realized that he didn't find their reactions funny at all. "The treatment took away all negative emotion as well, so I didn`t care about it at the time." Perceptive, and ever-so-tactful, Ed challenged the statement.  
"At the time. That means you care about it now."  
"The Saffron Society isn't after you yet," Kimblee concluded, distracting them (or possibly himself) from Ed`s line of questioning. "But that doesn't have anything to do with your array. Danner was at best an exile, but more likely an outsider with barely any information." He leaned closer to Ed,  
"May I see your array?" Ed quickly hid his left wrist. Kimblee smiled menacingly. "It isn't anything you can hide from me, you know. I've already seen Flame's." Ed grasped his wrist with his automail hand. "Would it help if I showed mine to you, first?" Zolf asked.

"You have one?" both Ed and Roy asked incredulously.  
"I believe I already told you that Danner had probably got the original from my files." He told Roy.  
"I'd assumed it was from your notes," Roy shrugged.  
"Before I was subjected to testing, my body was examined, and all distinguishing marks sketched on paper. This is what Danner probably saw." He unbuttoned his vest and lifted his shirts. Immediately forgetting his earlier defensiveness, Ed leaned toward him and closely examined the array on Zolf's sternum.  
"No doubt about it, this is the one I saw on Danner's first victim." Ed proclaimed. "But according to the old man who had it, even after she died he wasn't able to leave his wife's body," He looked at Kimblee speculatively. Kimblee sighed, in order to explain this he'd have to reveal a large amount of personal history.

"You've already suspected that I was born into the Saffron Society, haven't you?" He didn't wait for their affirmation. "My sister, Fay, was the Golden child. Hair as yellow as the sun," he described, gesturing to Ed's own golden hair, "and her eyes an even brighter shade of gold. She was a perfect candidate for breeding, but she had no interest in developing her alchemy. My own physical characteristics were barely passable, any darker and I'd have been exiled. In Amestris I would have been considered elite for my skills even at that age, but in the Saffron Society I was nothing but average. The only thing that set me apart was my passion for learning, and my unique field of interest. Even that wouldn't have been enough if my uncle hadn't spoken on my behalf. I was bonded with Fay, the ideal breeding candidate, so that my own desirable personality might be passed on to the souls of her children."

"What?!" Ed demanded, jumping up on the couch. "ARE YOU SAYING THAT BY BEING BONDED TO THAT ASSHOLE, ANY KIDS I HAVE ARE GOING TO ACT LIKE HIM?!" Rather than reply to Ed,  
"For the sake of everyone's sanity, I suggest you never have children," he told Roy dryly.

"Now, if I might continue... Alchemy marriage and a marriage of breeding are separate. The child stays with the mother and her soul-bonded husband, but each successive child is sired by the same biological father. She was betrothed to my cousin, and the though of that union drove me to abandon the Saffron society and Creta, seeking asylum in Amestris. I served as a simple soldier, then as State Alchemist, with Fay safely tucked out of sight in our home. However, when I was assigned to Ishval, the fuhrer personally offered to house her an hour's train ride away.  
"It was the last I saw of her." Half formed memories began to flood his view. "The night our bond was cut, I could no longer feel what direction she was in." Explosions, death, destruction. Ishvalans begging him to spare their lives, his answer, said without emotion, 'she died, so can you.' "I demanded her body, for proper burial, but was denied; she was still alive, they told me." Letters, hand written by Fay and sent weekly. "Her letters continued to reach me, saying much the same as those that came before, and I realised I was deceived." Anger, hate. Countless struggles with his superiors. He was escorted to a hidden enclave for 'therapy.' "I began to question orders, demanded Fay be brought to me, and made as much of a nuisance of myself as I could. Eventually, I was given a redstone with her soul inside it." Gran's shit-eating grin: he knew who was in that stone, and chose that one specifically for me.

Roy's expression hardened into anger at Fay's fate. Ed's mouth formed a wordless denial, his eyes big with terror.  
"Well," he offered, "at the time I'd already had my brain altered. All I experienced was the bliss of being near Fay once again. It was only for a few weeks, though. My redstone was lost in battle, and my connection with her soul is only perceptible when I am very near."

"I've spent years tracking her down, first to an Ishvalan alchemist, then to his brother, Scar. After the incident in Lior, I lost her trail." His keen eyes turned to the fullmetal alchemist. "I was intending on passing through Central without even getting off the train, when I felt her presence. It was barely more than a whisper, but the philosopher's stone must be somewhere in Central." Ed's face dropped, his small body shaking with emotion. Kimblee could tell it was affecting Roy through the bond, but with that man's facial expressions he couldn't tell just what emotion it was.

"I'm sorry," Ed's voice cracked. "We used it. It's gone." Kimblee was torn with rage,  
"MY Only Sister!" He hissed, leaping upon the boy, and pressing his forearm to his throat. Mustang was shouting at him, but clouded by emotion as he was, he ignored the words. "Why?!" He demanded of the child. "Why did you destroy her?" Ed only made small gasping sounds, and Zolf admonished himself for nearly choking someone. He let go, pretending it was only to hear an answer, but his knuckles were white and he was shivering in shock.

"It was made into part of Al's soul! He used it to bring me back to life." Ed admitted shamefully. "It's my fault, I'm so sorry..." He sobbed. Alchemical energy was burning in Zolf's palms. He wanted to kill someone, but he didn't actually want to kill anyone. He thought of killing himself, before finally letting go of the energy.  
"It's a fitting punishment," he admitted. "I've destroyed hundreds of lives with these hands, in pursuit of a life already extinguished. What did I expect to do once I found her?" He quieted to hopeless silence. Ed stared at Kimblee in sympathy for a long time, then his eyes flared with the stubborn resolve that had captured Roy's interest so many times.

"You said you felt her presence." He prompted. "That means she isn't gone. Maybe Al didn't use up all of the philosopher's stone. We'll help you get her back!"

* * *

"Well that didn't turn out the way I planned." Ed complained to his superior. After explaining what they'd found out that morning, Al had locked himself in the bathroom, and refused to even see Kimblee. Ed transmuted the door and dragged his brother out anyway.  
"You turned me into a bomb!" Al pointed accusingly at Kimblee. "I'm not going to help a psycopath like you!" Kimblee's eyes had widened in shock.  
"I can't say that I didn't, but I remember clearly the few who have survived..." So full of shame, he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. "...and I don't recognise you at all."  
"Of course you wouldn't! I was a six foot tall suit of armor at the time!" Kimblee hummed, his eyes almost crossing as he detachedly thought back through his many kills. Finally his eyes widened in recognition.  
"Ah! The empty armor from Lior." His entire body shook with the realization that he stood in front of one of the many people he'd wronged. Shocked with the intensity of it, it took some time to compose himself enough to explain. During that time, Alphonse crept behind his brother and stared suspiciously.  
"Something happened to me after I nearly died, and since then I've felt overwhelming guilt over your death and the many others I've caused." He nodded to himself. "Since I tried to kill you, it's only fair to allow you to kill me." He held his palms up and out to the sides in a gesture of complete defenselessness. Al almost looked tempted, but his sweet nature eventually won over.  
"I can't do that!" he cried in disgust. Shaking, he fell to his knees. "I can't kill you... But I can't help you either! It doesn't matter if you regret it now, you're still a murderer and I can't ever forgive you!" Beside Ed, Roy flinched. Though he kept it from his face, the bond betrayed his emotions. Ed jabbed him in the ribs as a way of reassuring him that Al didn't blame him for his part in the murder of Winry's parents.

"I understand that you can't forgive him," Roy interrupted. Ed could easily hear by Roy's inflection that when he said 'him' he meant 'me', and cursed his brother's cluelessness as the boy nodded agreement. "You don't have to help, but Fay's soul is trapped within yours. She has done no harm, and though you're not at fault for her present condition, the fact still remains that she and any other souls that still linger within you must be set free. Every time you use alchemy, might be destroying the souls who were inside the philosopher's stone. Therefore, I ask you to not use alchemy until we've found a way to free them." Al nodded briskly, glared at Kimblee, and shooed the murderer out of his apartment.  
"I'm fine with that. Now get out, and don't come back! I've got a study date soon, and I don't need you peering over our shoulders!"  
Roy and Zolf sat impatiently in the car while Ed grilled his brother about this 'date' he had, refusing to believe there would be any studying going on (though unlike most overprotective brothers, he was actually hoping there'd be something more than studying on Al's mind.)

* * *

"Was that your brother I saw, just now?" Kimberly LeFaye asked, as she let herself into Al's apartment with her own key.  
"Yeah," Al offered shyly.  
"I've met him before," she mused. "In London. His father did a speech on alchemical theory. That talk is what inspired me to study alchemy in a world that had none." Al laughed,  
"Is London one of those places in that other world, then?" He asked. She laughed back, her golden eyes shining like suns.  
"You still don't quite believe I come from a different world than you do. Go ahead and ask your brother about it sometime, he'll tell you."

* * *

"Considering my previous actions toward him," Kimblee reviewed in Roy's office, "that went pretty well." Roy barely looked up from his piles of paperwork, but bitterly realised the other man was taking Al's rejection better than he was. Furiously signing, he eyed his office door in fear of Hawkeye's return. Earlier, they'd returned to the office at the same time as his Lieutenant. He'd forgotten how much paperwork he'd left behind. They'd visited Al immediately after their conference with Kimblee, and even more had accumulated while they were out. There was now two full rounds of bullet holes in his walls, and one of the bullets had grazed his arm, putting a hole in the sleeve and oozing blood. He didn't have time to bind it, because SHE was coming back in an hour, guns reloaded and ready to motivate him if he didn't make enough progress. He knew he was in trouble, because Hawkeye never missed a shot - and never hit something she was meaning to miss. "Kimblee, either get your sorry ass over here and help me with this paperwork or get out! I don't have time to talk!" Edward scoffed as a reply and headed out of the office.  
"See you later, Colonel Bastard. I've got my own crap to take care of."  
"I'm a Brigadier General!" Roy shouted in exasperation without even looking up from his documents.  
"Sure thing, Bastard."

Little did either of them know, this distraction caused Roy to unwittingly sign a request for the Fullmetal Alchemist, Hero of the People, to appear for a formal ceremony in West City.


	4. Chapter 4

_**MAJOR RESTRUCTURING AND I ADDED BITS INTO THE CHAPTERS, I SUGGEST YOU START AT THE BEGINNING AGAIN, EVEN IF YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE STORY.**_

_Though the snowstorm had stopped, it had taken a toll on the little farmhouse in northern Creta. Nothing marred the pristine blanket surrounding the house, now bathed in the darkness of a cloudy night. Seven year old Zolf J Kimblee struggled through the new layer of snow: soft, but wet and deeper than his knees. He strode on, urging his feet to go faster so he could check on his mama. He was the 'Man of the House', he'd been told at his father's funeral. He had 'Responsibilities'. Uncle Jess said it meant he must be brave, and not cry in front of his mother._

Finally There! _he silently cheered, wiping his frozen tears from his face before opening the door._  
_"Mama, I phoned the doctor and he said he'd..." The telltale signs of alchemy sparked through the parlor door. Both his parents were practicing alchemists, so the sight didn't alarm him. But... how could his mama concentrate on an alchemy circle when she was 'In Labor'? She'd told him that it really hurt, so she couldn't walk to the doctor's clinic, or to the phone at the general store. Quietly, so as not to break her concentration, he peeked around the doorframe._

_Black hands were wrapped around mama, pulling her into a majestic gate that he knew didn't belong in his house. He was only 7, and not a prodigy, but he was smart enough - and he'd been raised in a house of alchemy. This door was part of a fable his parents told him from time to time, of a man who tried to create humans and suffered terrible consequences for defying nature. The rug was rolled to the side, revealing a complicated transmutation drawn directly onto the floorboards. It was hours of work, he knew, to draw something so complicated. It was weeks of work to research, and check it, and double-check it, because a rebound from that much alchemical power was death and worse._

_"Stay away from her!" He charged for the black hands, only to arrive too late. His mother was already inside the door. He instinctually stopped before he touched the transmutation circle. He'd been raised to never touch an active array, and even now with his hands reaching as far as they could, he would not disobey the only rule his parents religiously enforced. It seemed an eternity passed, though the parlor clock indicated seconds, until the black hands returned._

_"Mama!" He cried in releif, before he saw what the black hands had delivered to him. There, in the center of the transmutation circle, was blood, half-formed and half-deconstructed organs and bones, and atop it all... his new baby sister._

* * *

He awoke with a start, scattering books and paperwork off his desk.  
"What the hell was that for," an annoyed Ed asked from across the office. Thanks to Brigadier-General Mustang's large number of subordinates, all three alchemists currently shared Roy's office until another one could be requisitioned. It was quite convenient, actually, since Mustang seemed to constantly go for walks, or fall asleep on his paperwork. It was really only the hour or so before a major deadline that transformed the office into a paper-hurricane when Mustang shouted monologues about 'paperwork is a waste of time'.

Zolf had settled in quickly, and with very little paperwork to do, had raided every nearby library for 'research purposes.' Earlier that day he'd explained to Ed that, yes, a dictionary (or 5) was legitemate reading material -_Yes_, he was reading it in order alphabetically, and -_YES!_ Mustang had indeed authorized this_ 'creative waste of military funding' NOW SHUT UP AND LET ME READ IN PEACE!_ But, shortly after that argument, he'd fallen asleep. It appeared that Ed hadn't forgiven him for shouting, yet.  
"Sorry," was all Zolf offered. Ed's eyes softened,

"Nightmare?" He asked. Zolf merely nodded, hoping Ed would drop the subject. This was Ed, though, and tact wasn't his strong point. Especially when he was still trying to understand a person. "Was it about the stone?" Zolf huffed his annoyance, but Ed either didn't or refused to catch on. "About your sister, then?" Zolf abrubtly stood, and stalked out of the room. In the hall, however, Mustang was coming back from one of his walks. One would have thought he had just come back from the mail room, rather than out in the shopping district. Envelopes packed neatly into his hands were scattered when Zolf rushed into him.

"Ah, Kimblee. Perfect timing, I need to speak with you alone about your first mission. Once Roy had explained it to him, he asked:  
"Won't Edward be upset that you didn't tell him?" Zolf asked. It was a token protest, though. He was beginning to understand the working relationship between the two; Roy manipulated Ed, Ed protested loudly but eventually went along. Anything direct between the two was saved for personal affairs.

A week later, when they boarded the train, it wasn't until after the train was moving too fast for Ed to jump out, that Mustang broke the news to him.

* * *

_The Ishvalan night was abnormally cool, which is to say, soldiers were only fainting from the heat rather than dying. Zolf had long ago shed any part of his uniform he thought he could get away with. His subordinates, unfortunately, could not get away with any of it. He was an alchemist, after all. An irreplacable weapon. They... They were merely soldiers, expendable. He felt sympathy for them, but not enough to suffer along with them in a heavy wool better suited to Briggs Mountain. Major Zolf J. Kimblee, responsible for the 16 men under his command. He and they had fought and lived, buried comrades, and spoken of their lives before the war. He trusted them, and until that moment, he thought they deserved that trust._

_"What the hell is this?!" He demanded, restrained by all 16 of his men. The strongest two were prying his fingers open, to expose his palms._  
_"We're very sorry, sir." One of his men apologized. "It's orders from Colonel Grande." Zolf's blood ran ice cold, despite the heat. The Iron Blood Alchemist was well known for his creative punishments. Zolf had forgotten to bring his spare grease pencil on their previous mission, and as a result had been unable to destroy the building they were ordered to raid. All the rebel Ishvalans had been caught or killed, but the arrays he'd drawn on his hands were smudged during the battle, and he was unable to redraw them afterward._

_"Gag him," He heard Iron Blood but couldn't see him. Before Zolf could react, his mouth was filled with cloth and a belt held it in place. He'd been walking out of the mess tent when he was attacked, and now he was pushed back in. Judging from the lack of reaction, everyone but him already knew what would be happening. He swung his head back and forth, looking for his previous dining companions, or indeed any of the men he was on friendly terms with, but none of them would meet his eyes. Soon, he was tied to a table, his head pillowed on someone's abandoned meal and his fingers clamped palms up at the edges._  
_"I've watched you come in from every mission, eagerly running to the trough to wash your hands. You think that you can go unarmed in camp? Don't be ridiculous! I've warned you on several occasions that using such a temporary array will eventually cost more than just your own life." The Crimson Lotus alchemist narrowed his eyes, Of course Grande would think that. He relies on a single array for every occasion!_

_"I am aware of your argument that you use several different arrays. Yet they can all be added to one of two basic arrays that you usually draw on your hands ahead of time. Two arrays that, when combined, offer your most useful alchemical technique anyways." God, how he wished he'd never used that technique. Making a person explode was an act of desperation, one he never wanted to repeat. Grande was the only surviving witness, and had charitably kept his mouth shut, but constantly reminded Zolf of how useful that ability would be. "You need to have permanent arrays, Crimson." Crimson LOTUS! He hated when Grande intentionally shortened his Alchemist title. "If you will not get your own, I will provide them for you." A sharp pain started on his hand, and he jerked it in reflex. The clamps were tight, but nothing held his wrists from moving._

_"Ah!" Grand cried out. "That was close. I suggest you hold very still, unless you want this array to be misdrawn." Zolf tried to shout, tried to escape or push Grande away. Immediately, his wrists were pinned down. "If you have something to say, I can remove the gag. But I must warn you it's there to help you deal with the pain." The belt came loose and he immediately spit out the cloth._  
_"I won't stay still while you carve an array into my skin!"_  
_"Carve?" Grande laughed. "This isn't a carving, it's a tattoo. Unfortunately, we don't have the modern equipment for it here, so you'll have to suffer through this the old fashioned way."_  
_"You Bastaaaard!" Zolf cried, and suddenly his hands were free. He leapt at Grande, gripping his neck and bearing him to the ground._

... the neck was a lot smaller than he expected from the bulky Basque Grande. The body much shorter, too. A gauntleted fist rushed toward his face, hitting him with more power than he'd expected from a man with long arms at such a close range. He was sent reeling into the door of the train compartment. The sound of travel replaced the mess hall noises.

Edward Elric stared at him wide eyed, "I'm sorry I stepped on your hand, but trying to choke me for it is a little extreme." Just then, the door slid open, and Mustang walked in.  
"Kimblee? Is there a good reason why you are attacking my other subordinate?" Zolf jerked his hands away from Ed, holding them close to his chest and tracing the array that was so freshly carved into his memory.  
"I don't have to put up with this shit," Edward announced, still sore from the revelation that he was going to be the trophy-celebrity in West City. "I'm going to the food car." Zolf returned to the seat he'd been sleeping on, tracing the array on his hand with trembling fingers. Roy took a spot on the opposite seat, and waited for an explanation.

None was forthcoming.

He watched Kimblee tracing the arrays with a strange expression.  
"I've always wondered why you'd tattoo arrays on your hands, rather than use gloves." Roy offered. Zolf offered a self-depreciating chuckle.  
"Do you remember a time in Ishval, when your glove tore?" He asked.  
"My gloves were torn many times during Ishval." Roy answered as non-committedly as possible.  
"You started carrying spares that very day. While you were panicking over your uselessness, I saw a spare glove falling out of your pocket." Roy remembered now. That 'spare' glove hadn't fit right, and the array had been slightly off, but it had got the job done. That glove was, now that he thought back, probably made by another alchemist who had only seen his original array and knew the basic principles behind fire alchemy rather than one he himself had made. He stared suspiciously at the man across the compartment.  
"You wouldn't have been able to control that array, why would you make a glove?"

"I hated you, you know." _Yes,_ Roy thought back to many occasions where Crimson Lotus had made it very clear what he thought of the Flame Alchemist. _ I was painfully aware of that_. "You came in to the camp the same way I had, clinging to your ideals. You made the same mistakes I made, mistakes of an alchemist unfamiliar with war. You _would've_ had the same consequences I had, if I'd just left you alone." He looked at Roy with lost eyes. "I'd already had that damned treatment! Why didn't I leave you to suffer?" They both sat in silence While Roy remembered the times that he'd made a terrible blunder only to have Kimblee mock him for it, indirectly inspiring an action that could hide or fix his mistake. Eventually, his memory reached the mistake that couldn't be fixed.

"If you were truly looking over me, protecting me like you claim, then where were you?" Roy stared at his shaking hands. The incident that nearly destroyed his mind playing over and over again. "Where were you when I shot the Rockbells?" He demanded. Kimblee stared at him with cold eyes,  
"I was preventing you from following any excuse that might justify your disobeying orders."  
"What?!" Roy whispered in angered disbeleif.  
"Grande was testing you. If you failed to follow orders, like I had... you'd have been treated with an experimental array and given the same order, again and again until you followed it." Memories of the orphanage he destroyed flooded his vision. Amestrian, but for a single Ishvalan, but he was still ordered to exterminate everyone.

"Blame me if you want, but I made you choose the path that I didn't. If it was the wrong choice, then there was no right choice."


	5. Chapter 5

**MAJOR RESTRUCTURING AND I ADDED BITS INTO THE CHAPTERS, I SUGGEST YOU START AT THE BEGINNING AGAIN, EVEN IF YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE STORY.**

"This is so lame!" Ed complained. "Why do we have to come with you to do some stupid inspection in some stupid barracks in the middle of stupid nowhere." Mustang smirked,  
"Because I must have an excuse to attend your formal ceremony in West City, and the only thing I could arrange on such short notice was to be nearby, at the border battalion that was overdue for an inspection."  
"I wish you would have told me where we were going," Kimblee complained. "This is too close to Creta for my comfort."  
"I apologise for bringing you along, Crimson Lotus, but you must be under the supervision of a State Alchemist. With both Fullmetal and I gone, You'd have been under the orders of someone else in Central, and of the other state alchemists that outrank you, there are none in Central that I trust."

"So in your altruistic goal of protecting me from unwanted orders, you ordered me to come with you to the _borders of my home country?_"  
"You didn't object to the orders when I told you about them." He argued.  
"You didn't tell me we'd be standing in front of the Goddamn Gate to Creta!"  
"Ah, there's the car driving up now. We'll talk about this at the barracks."

"You must be General Mustang," Lieutenant Colonel Ester began, guiding them into the barracks "I know you'll find everything in order here. We've had to increase our numbers lately, due to political pressures from Creta. After all, we don't wanna be caught off guard if those yellow eyed Cretins launch an attack."  
"I beleive it's pronounced 'Cretans'" Kimblee offered politely, completely at odds with his unfriendly expression. Ester paused to take a closer look at the Brigadier General's aides, and found two pairs of yellow orbs boring a hole into him. He cleared his throat awkwardly.  
"Yes, uh... Cretans." He recovered admirably, "Our current numbers are nearly twice what we had during our last inspection, and as such this will take a bit more time. Shall we start with a tour of the new buildings?"  
"If we wanted to look at architecture, there's plenty in Central," Ed muttered under his breath. Ester thought he heard one of them speak, but when he turned to look, he was met with a full set of bland expressions. Once he turned around, Ed glared at his superior while Roy nursed his stubbed toe. _Serves him right to kick an automail shin_, Zolf snickered, wondering if he should get in on the fun since _both_ his shins were automail. No sooner had he thought it, his entire demeanor transformed into threatened suspicion.

Mustang and Ester had already crossed the threshold into the first building, when Ed was caught midstride by Kimblee. He was dragged backwards and propped against the wall. Zolf braced himself beside the door, which was barely ajar by now, and said several unfamiliar expletives that Ed filed away for future use. Ed's hands were already in the motion of clapping while he waited for an explanation.  
"There's a Cretan spy manning the arms counter in there."  
Ed stared flatly at the other man. "Come again?" he asked in monotone.

"There's a Cretan spy manning the arms counter!" Kimblee hissed in frustration.  
"And how would you know that?" Ed demanded, disbeleiving. Kimblee turned his full Mad Bomber smile at him.  
"He's family." Ed's eyes widened, remembering Kimblee's explanation of what society he was born into. _'I doubt they even know of you, Fullmetal Alchemist, because if they did you'd have long ago been spirited away'_  
"Fuck!"

* * *

Only now did Roy realize he'd lost both his aides. There'd been a tremor through his bond of something unidentifiable, and when he looked back questioningly at Edward, he wasn't there. Neither was Zolf. "Brigadier General, if you'll come this way, I'd like to show you..."

* * *

"Seriously? I thought your family was supposed to have yellow hair." Ed was peeking through a crack in the doorway, whispering fervently to his companion. Zolf peered over his head (BECAUSE HE'S AN UNNATURALLY TALL BEANPOLE AND I AM NOT TINY ENOUGH TO FIT BETWEEN THE TREADS IN HIS SHOES!) and examined the suspect one more time. The man behind the counter glanced at the door. Immediately, both of them rushed away, letting the door swing fully closed.  
"He's dyed it. His eyes are hidden by contact lenses, too. I'd recognize him anywhere, though." His expression darkened. "If anyone ever deserved to become a living explosive, it's him."  
"Tormented you as a child, didn't he?" Ed nodded knowingly. Zolf's hands clenched and unclenched,

"You need a disguise," He began looking for components he could use to darken that golden hair.  
"Why do_ I_ need a disguise. It's _you_ he'll recognise."  
"I don't plan on letting him see either of us. However, if he has accomplices they might mention the boy with golden hair and eyes. If I do anything right while I am on this earth, it'll be keeping you a secret from the Saffron Society." To emphasize his point, he drew his hands together in a clap and touched Ed's braid.

"You've seen the gate," Ed accused. His hair was now coated with a brown residue, but he didn't even notice the effects of the transmutation. The Crimson Lotus Alchemist had performed a transmutation by using his body as a circle. Zolf narrowed his eyes,  
"You've seen it, too." He justified. The door began to open. Both alchemists stared at each other in horror, before running for the corner of the building like children hiding from their mother.

Breathing heavily, they peered out from their hiding place. Kimblee's cousin was searching curiously, but gave up quickly and headed back to his post.  
"That how you lost your legs?" Ed demanded.  
"That how you lost yours?" Kimblee countered.  
"Who'd you try to bring back?"  
"Nobody, I was preventing my own death. Who'd _you_ try to bring back?"  
"My mother," Ed scowled, daring Kimblee to judge him.  
"_My_ mother lost most of her internal organs trying to bring back my surrogate father." This was becoming a rather tragic bout of one-upmanship.  
"My brother lost his _entire body_ in the gate!"  
"My sister was_ born_ inside the gate!"  
"I was almost_ chained to the fucking gate_ by that asshole Danner!"  
"If I had stayed in Creta, I'd have_ become_ one of those black creatures _trapped inside the gate!_"

The side door slammed open, startling them from their contest.  
"Our other new building has become the office," Ester told Mustang, gesturing across the field. Zolf and Ed fell back in behind their CO and settled into silence. The rest of the inspection was spent in silence, but for Ed's last words to their argument. "It's a draw." Kimblee nodded his assent,  
"Let us never speak of it again."

* * *

The crowd was pressing in from all sides in West HQ, even among the officers' section. The turnout to see the Fullmetal Alchemist dedicate the opening of the new alchemy lab had been unbelievably larger than expected. Kimblee was sure there wasn't more than a handful of people outside of the parade grounds for at least five miles. What was _inside_ the parade grounds was a sea of humanity from gate to gate, pressed against the fences, and crowding to almost touch Fullmetal from where he stood with a pair of transmuted, oversized (and tastelessly decorated) scissors. Zolf had long ago stopped paying attention to the speech the Fuhrer was giving, and began to calculate how big of an explosion he could make with all this noisy (he had his fingers in his ears) and pushy (he got jostled back and forth as every body that touched him tried to take the space he was currently occupying) raw materials. Partway through his calculations, his stomach sank at the realization that he was considering killing them all. Morbid curiosity, however, bid him to continue on with the math. After all, it was far more entertaining than the dry speech, and it wasn't as though he would ever go through with it... anymore.

So preoccupied with the delirium of alchemical mathematics, Kimblee didn't notice right away that his feet were sinking into the pavement.  
"Damnit!" He shouted, struggling to lift his feet from the quicksand beneath him. "Flame!" He called out. "Mustang, where are you?"  
"Right behind you," Mustang muttered next to his ear.  
"Help me up," he demanded, grabbing for Mustang's arms to pull himself out.  
"That'll be rather difficult," Mustang replied, conversationally. "I'm sinking, too." Kimblee looked at the people near him, but couldn't gauge how many might be sinking with them, as the crowd varied greatly in height between individuals.

* * *

With the crowd pressed so tight, nobody noticed the sinking soldiers except those immediately beside them. With each passing second they sunk faster and faster until finally their heads were beneath the ground.

* * *

Ed forced his smile to remain on his face. Roy's emotions through the bond were confusing but strong. What is going on?! He scanned the crowd for his bondmate, but the man was nowhere in sight.

* * *

Zolf was rapidly losing consciousness through lack of air, when someone grabbed hold of his foot and pulled hard. His whole body stung from the strain, until finally he pulled free of the dirt and fell into a pit below. A handful of officers were shooting at their alchemist attacker, who had conjured a rock shield and smirked behind it. His hands still touched the transmutation circle on the ceiling of the cave, and several more polished boots could be seen hanging there. Kimblee quickly took stock of the situation. The pit was too deep to climb out, but it was shallow enough for him to reach his hands up if he jumped. The alchemist at the ceiling was within reach - barely - but if he managed to touch even the feet, this business would end. He took an abortive step forward before his conscience caught up to him. The man needed to be taken out, that was certain, but the moment he stopped his transmutation all those people sinking into the pit would be stuck in the rock.

His decision was made for him, as another alchemist talked to the first, and the transmutation ended. After two attempts, his fingers finally closed around the attacking alchemist's toes, and he performed what he was best at; making human bombs. The explosion shook the cave, shrapnel flying at the unsuspecting officers in the pit. Zolf was no exception, a rock lodged in his shoulder and the world blackening around the sides. He stumbled backwards, hoping to catch a glimpse of the other man that was near the alchemist. The man didn't disappoint. Horrified recognition lit Zolf's features before he collapsed into oblivion.

"Alfred," he whispered, "don't touch me..."

* * *

Ed stood at the ribbon, staring earnestly into the crowd. "What's happened?" He anxiously asked the Fuhrer's aide. The Fuhrer continued to drone on with his speech, long winded and boring the crap outta everyone there.  
"Beg pardon?" The aide answered.  
"Where is Mustang?" He asked anxiously. Something was seriously fucked with the bond; first panic, then anger and something unidentifiable, followed by... nothing.  
"Why, he's right over there." The aide gestured at the dense crowd. He could have been pointing anywhere.  
"I don't see him." Ed said flatly.  
"Ah, that is because-"

"Don't say it, don't even imply it, or I'll make a scene!" Ed murmured, threatening. The aide tactfully backed away. Ed was rather pleased with this newfound solution to his height insecurity: Zolf told him, 'don't give em a chance to speak, and they won't insult you.' Though the former Mad Bomber had probably employed a different tactic, it did nicely to lessen the frequency of his outbursts which, he admitted, he was getting too old to get away with.


	6. Chapter 6

**MAJOR RESTRUCTURING AND I ADDED BITS INTO THE CHAPTERS, I SUGGEST YOU START AT THE BEGINNING AGAIN, EVEN IF YOU'VE ALREADY READ THE STORY.**

**AN: The Sacred Star of Milos was added to Netflix, so now I got a much more detailed playground for my characters to brawl in! Yay for netflix! I am still sticking with my following of the original anime, and only using the geography of the city for the story. The geography of it before the movie-Ed came around and left destruction in his wake.**

Roy woke to the sounds of a car, feeling the bumpiness of a gravel road. Gasping, he immediately took stock of the situation. He was in a cargo truck of some kind. Not bound, hands free and his gloves still on. There wasn't enough light to see, so he rasped his fingers together to make flame.  
"Don't!" That was Kimblee's voice. The telltale crackle of alchemy ignited a diminutive ball of fire before fizzling out. Rebound hit Roy hard, gasping and breathless. _What? It was a tiny flame, I do larger transmutations daily!_

"It's standard punishment for alchemists in Creta. We're sitting on an array that steals the energy from any transmutation. It prevents escape through means of alchemy, as well as serving punishment for even attempting it."  
"What happened?" Roy asked, checking himself for hidden injuries. _Everything hurt, dammit!_  
"My cousin, Alfred." Roy waited for further explanation, none was offered.  
"So... your cousin Alfred did what, exactly?" He asked after a short bout of confusion.  
"I would think it's obvious, Flame. He kidnapped us." Zolf made it sound so matter of fact, Roy wondered why his own mind wasn't keeping up.  
"... for what reason?" He ventured. Zolf huffed his annoyance,  
"Because I qualify to become an Honoured One, and you are married to a golden boy straight out of their wet dreams."  
"Forgive me for being slow, but how did they find that information out?"  
"Well, there was a Cretan spy arming the ammunitions counter: my cousin, Alfred. He obviously caught a glimpse of me despite my precautions, and followed us to West City."  
"What about my 'marriage' to fullmetal?" Either Roy had a head injury that prevented him from thinking straight, or Zolf was absolutely terrible at explanations. He was leaning towards the latter.  
"I told him." Zolf offered. _Yes, definitely the latter._  
"And..." _Oh, how to be tactful?_ "What kind of moron would do a stupid thing like that?" Oops, that wasn't tactful. The head injury hypothesis might have some merit.  
"This kind of moron would let it slip in order to keep you alive and buy Ed some more time." Zolf answered cheerily. Feeling the need to explain more fully, (finally, Roy thought, some explanations! ) "After we were pulled through the ground, I made something of an intellectual error."  
"Would this be the one where you caused an explosion in a contained area," Roy drawled, "or is it something that happened after you incapacitated your fellow soldiers?"

"I was nothing short of a sociopathic maniac for more than a decade. Unless I make a conscious effort, my habits and thought processes tend to dismiss collateral damage as somebody else's problem." _tch, that makes two of you. And you're both my subordinates. I must be a masochist._  
The door to their compartment opened, startling both of them since neither had noticed the vehicle stopping. With the light, Roy could see Zolf's injuries.

"Collateral damage?" He asked wryly, raising a brow. Zolf childishly stuck his tongue out at his commander, illiciting a laugh. "Don't make promises you can't keep," Roy drawled. Immediately, Zolf blushed. In Creta, it was nothing more than a rude gesture, but in Amestris it held strong sexual innuendo. He wasn't sure what, exactly, as he'd never had the nerve to ask, but it was definitely something he didn't want to do with another man! Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Alfred, whose tongue was sticking out. Zolf's stomach dropped like lead.  
"Go on," prompted Alfred. "Let's hear about your intellectual error."

"The man I killed was nothing more than a decoy," he ground out between clenched teeth. "You expected me to go after the first guilty party I saw, and I played right into your trap."  
"Ah, Zolfie. Don't get too down on yourself. At least you saw through me." He spread his arms as if offering the though as a consolation. "If I hadn't done my research, it would have been me lying in thousands of tiny bits on that cave floor." Zolf's eyes narrowed as his smile widened, diving with deadly-hands-first from the truck and its limiting transmutation circle and onto his cousin.  
Alfred's cry of surprise was quickly drowned out by Zolf's cry of terror. Roy shuffled to the doors for a better look, but as he approached it, black arms reached over the roof and slammed the doors closed.

* * *

_"P-Papa?" Zolf's tiny body shivered with apprehension, inching toward the canyon where his father had disappeared. He crawled the last few feet, peeking over the ledge where, only moments ago, Dietrich had been proving to his family that the switchback was perfectly safe. It was hard to tell rock and man apart, but the sheer amount of red covering the pile of what should be gray rocks gave him a tummy ache and an emotion he didn't understand. Mama screamed._

"You didn't tell me this was a family member of my body's template." Papa reprimanded Alfred.  
"I thought it'd be a surprise reunion," Alfred explained with mischief.  
"Homunculi are not supposed to come in contact with family or close friends of their template; it stirs up inconvenient memories."  
"Are you telling me that the Ultimate Interrogator is rendered useless in the face of his son?" Zolf's eyes took in the image of his father, wearing an expression foreign to his papa's kind smile.  
"It just takes more work," the imposter explained, grasping Zolf's head and examining it like a melon. "Tell me about the dark man's connection with the boy." To Zolf's dismay, he was speaking despite all his efforts otherwise. He could no more alter the truth or outright lie, than he could stop his own heart. And when he listened to Roy's interview, he wished he could have done either.

"Well, Zolfy, aren't you relieved? Looks like we found a use for you alive." Alfred sighed in mock disappointment, "No honored place inside the Gate for you quite yet, I have a better use for you as a reward for our latest ally." a black, misshapen... Thing.. dragged itself to the edge of the roof where Roy was once again imprisoned. "I originally thought to help him absorb enough energy as the recipient of the energy-drain circle, but to have him beholden to us for providing him with a living philosophers stone is much better." The thing on the roof turned its (head?) To look at Zolf with glowing red eyes, and the monster laughed in malice. Zolf's struggles intensified, dread inspiring nearly inhuman strength in him. Unfortunately, his captor had him pinned by someone with _true_ inhuman strength. Panic crested into a dead faint, and Zolf swam against the tide of half formed nightmares that were all defined by one name:

_Greed._

* * *

When Zolf awoke, his hands were chained to the edge of a mile-wide transmutation circle. His false father, the Ultimate Interrogator, was leading Roy on a final check of the circle.

"Everything is accurate?" It demanded. Roy's face was wet with tears and sweat, still struggling against the compulsion to speak.

"No," he finally admitted, heading to a part of the circle that had looked wrong to Zolf, from what he could see chained to the edge of it. A few minutes of altering, and Roy returned to his interrogator.

"Now it is."

"Then show me the other circle. Carve it on Greed." Roy hung his head in defeat, heading for the malformed, blackened humanoid in the center of the circle.

"What the hell are you doing, Flame?" Zolf shouted in anger. He knew from his own experience that it was impossible to fight this compulsion, but he was just minutes away from a lifetime of hell, bound to a demon he'd betrayed years before. "You said you'd protect me! You said I wouldn't have to follow orders I didn't believe in, well that... _thing_... is going to order me to activate this array soon and you're doing nothing but aiding him!" Alfred shoved Zolf to the ground with his booted foot, hard enough to knock the air out of him.

"Ah, now we can't have that!" He teased. "Your commanding officer shouldn't break his promises. Besides, Uncle Damian," he used the name of Zolf's papa to torment him further, "can't compel you to show him something you've never seen. I, however, have extensive experience in compelling you to do what I want." Zolf's mind flashed to his childhood.

_Fay stood at the center of an unactivated array, as Zolf stood at one that Alfred had already started and walked away from, its unguided energy lashing out at Zolf. "Please, Alfred! Don't make me!"_

_"Do you want to see what happens to her?" Zolf shook his head vigorously in answer. "Then do it!" That command jolted him into action, touching the array and finishing what Alfred had started. Alchemical energy shot through him, and he knew at once that whatever this circle did would hurt him worse than anything Alfred threatened for Fay - it always did._

"Fay is gone, you have no bargaining tool!" Zolf denied his cousin furiously. When he'd fled from Creta, he thought he'd never be in this position again.

"Do you want to see what happens to him?" Alfred asked, Zolof didn't need to see Roy to know he was in the center of a very familiar array. In that moment he wished he'd still been the broken madman he was over three years ago. With his moral compass abandoned, he could have broken his childhood training - or maybe not; the Flame Alchemist was the only one he'd still been compelled to protect, even in his darkest years. His spirit broke, sending wracking sobs through his body as he shook his head in denial, continuing the conditioned response.

"Then do it!"

* * *

After the opening ceremony ended, the officers mired in solid rock were finally discovered. By then, Ed couldn't feel any emotion through the bond. He felt lethargic, and his head hurt like it was trapped in a vice. Roy was gone, he'd already checked. Zolf was missing, as well. Though he'd never actually seen the results of Crimson Lotus' infamous array, he was pretty sure that the destruction in the cave below him was that man's work. Burnt blood covered the walls in a gruesome form of abstract art. Rocks littered the area that had been alchemically shaped before they were shattered from the cave walls. After examining the stress cracks in the cave, it was a wonder the whole thing hadn't collapsed on top of them. Ed smirked: Obviously, the alchemist who made the cavern wasn't expecting such an explosive form of resistance.

The area had obviously been cleared of the living while the ceremony took place, and if the missing/dead ratio was considered, most of the soldiers who had sunk all the way through had been kidnapped. Only a handful of dead, and a white glove with a familiar array on it, were left behind to tell the tale of what had happened to over forty unlucky soldiers. Ed couldn't stay in the cave, knowing that Roy was kidnapped under his very nose: there wasn't enough room to pace and nobody standing idle to shout at.

While he tried to clear his head, a Sargent ran up to him with a letter.  
"there was a note addressed to you pinned to the cave entrance." Ed looked down at the envelope, it said _To: the golden boy._  
"JUST WHO IS HE SAYING IS SO SHORT THAT I CAN'T POSSIBLY BE AN ADULT?!"  
"I wouldn't know, sir." The Sargent answered with a barely repressed snigger. Ed tore open the envelope, through the middle. He muttered an unfelt 'oops', and pieced the page back together.

_We have your wife_, it informed him. "Hah," Ed muttered. "I bet that bastard'd flip if he read that!"

_Meet in the valley west of Table City, below the Cretan drilling structure._

After passing in and out of barely consciousness, Zolf awoke to the feeling of hot energy washing over him. Greed sat near him, stroking along a golden tether that joined his wrist to Zolf's.

"_Mine,_" he whispered worshipfully.

"Please," Zolf prayed aloud. "If any God truly exists, wake me from this nightmare!"

"I'm so sorry, Kimblee." Roy gasped through his sobs. Zolf looked over at his commanding officer, and saw the face of Major Flame, as Mustang had been after Gran's test of loyalty. _Good!_ Zolf couldn't help but think. _He failed me, he deserves that guilt._

"If I'd only... if I'd... There had to be _something_ I could have done!" Roy agonized. When Zolf thought about it, he'd unwillingly betrayed Roy first. He knew that homunculus' compulsion was impossible to resist. Still, he needed someone to blame...

_Greed!_ This monster who he'd once betrayed, who insisted on posessing everything he touched. _That_ was who to blame. He lurched forward painfully, diving upon the object of his hate. His hands warmed as he pushed energy into the arrays on his palm: It might not kill a homunculus, but it would be _damn gratifying!_

"Hold on there, lover-boy! We can consummate our marriage later," Greed purred. "Don't you remember what happened last time you tried to kill me?" Roy was there, inserting himself between the two.

"Stay away from my subordinate," Roy demanded with a rage-filled hiss. "Don't you dare even _touch_ him!" What had happened last time he'd...

"What happened last time," He demanded. "I don't remember."

"You _died_ with me," Greed answered in remembered sorrow. "But you didn't regenerate right away. For about an hour, we all thought you were truly dead." Zolf looked at his body, but there were no signs of injury.

"But I don't-"

"You didn't _explode_ with me," Greed laughed. "You just stopped breathing, stopped your heart, stopped living. I was pretty disappointed, after all I'd just got you back, and I hadn't had a chance to punish you for your betrayal... but now that I know you heal faster than a human, and heal from dead, I've got something better in mind for us." He smiled, raising his Ultimate shield just before Roy delivered a mean right hook.

"Watch out there, little lady." He teased the Flame alchemist. "We wouldn't want you to mar that perfect skin of yours; not when your golden knight is racing here to rescue you." He offered a sly grin. "You might want to save those love taps for him, once you find out what he must do to save you."


End file.
